Why N K Singh has been dumped?

Patna,(BiharTimes): Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has the political knack to dump those who had promoted or helped him. The most important leader whom he left in lurch after parting ways with old friend Lalu Prasad Yadav in 1994 was none else but George Fernandes. A few years later the party chief Sharad Yadav is paying the price. The national president of the party is virtually being forced to dance to the tune of the Bihar chief minister.
But a third surprise name in the long list of those discarded by him is that of senior bureaucrat-turned-politician, N K Singh. After his retirement Singh chose a regional party like Janata Dal (United), rather than the Bharatiya Janata Party or Congress. He could have been embraced by the BJP as he was Secretary in the Prime Minister Office when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the prime minister of the country. He had served at several top posts in the country for long and had a very good link in bureaucracy, international agencies and academics.

Son of an ICS officer and Congresswoman mother he had a very good link with the Gandhi-Nehru family since the very beginning. His sisters too are in bureaucracy.

In that way the BJP would have given him much more importance to him than it is giving to Raj Kumar Singh, the former Union home secretary. After all N K Singh’s brother, Uday Singh, is the BJP MP from Purnea and a very bitter critic of Nitish Kumar.

In spite of all that he opted to join Janata Dal (United), a relatively small regional party for his stature. It was he who undertook the work to market Nitish Kumar, be it internationally or within the country. It was his old relations with friends in Planning Commission, such as Montek Singh Ahluwalia and even Finance Minister P Chidambaram, which helped Nitish government get a lot of importance––and even funds.

Before becoming the chief minister in November 2005 Nitish Kumar did not have such a cordial relationship with Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, London School of Economics Professor, Meghnad Desai and others. It is because of Singh that Nitish easily got introduced to all those in the Mentor Group of the Nalanda University project.

N K Singh also played an important role in the image making of Nitish in the media. Soon after becoming the chief minister he became the darling of the national media. He is also one of the director of a leading media house.

As Singh had a good relationship with industrialists he helped bring in investment in Bihar––although not much. At least he worked as a linkman between the CM and industrialists.

Yet the big question is why after all Nitish Kumar is now asking him to fight Lok Sabha election. Shivanand Tiwary might have said that the party “ki halat kharab hai” in Chintan Shivir at Rajgir, but N K Singh never said any such thing against Nitish or the party in the public.

Some insiders are of the opinion that the failure of stitching an alliance with congress is the major reason behind punishing Singh as he was the major conduit with congress leaders and considered as a prime architect of forging a secular alliance with Congress. The decision of parting away from BJP was based on their feedback.

Sources in Janata Dal (United) said that the name of former bureaucrat was dropped because he let down Nitish on the issue of special category status. The Raghuram Rajan Committee report did not do justice to the state though initially without reading it in detail the chief minister had welcomed it. Later he came to know that there is nothing for the Bihar for which he had so long been demanding.

He was reportedly upset over the Committee’s report. But what he failed to appreciate is that it was not Singh, but Dr Shaibal Gupta, member-secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI), who was one of the members of the six-member Committee set up by the Centre.

So why was then N K Singh targeted? The question may remain unanswered for now.